Republican John Boehner, whose name is apparently not pronounced "boner" but maybe should be, is the House Minority Leader. He's one of the guys in charge of plotting the Republican Party's future and putting a smiley face on the rubble that is the party after President Bush. A couple of days ago, he gave everyone a glimpse of Republican campaign strategy by telling a bald-faced and easily refutable lie about Barack Obama, and now he's saying that the party doesn't need to change.
"It's not that the party's going to change, it's what we talk about and
how we talk about it," he said. "You look at the Republican brand name being where it is, let's be frank about it. Iraq has been very unpopular, right? It's associated with Republicans. The president's job
approval is somewhere down around 30. Those are the two big issues that hurt the brand.
He's right that people hate the war and scorn the President. They're certainly two issues that are hurting the Republican brand. But there's a reason for that: those two issues are the Republican brand. Boehner and his cohorts have spent the last seven years blindly following President Bush and accusing those who disagree with the President of all kinds of psychotic and treasonous behavior. And, in the meantime, lots of other problems have bubbled-up into the public consciousness as well that Republicans have shown no inclination to deal with.
The idea that Republicans' problems are rhetorical -- that they can turn things around by changing the subject and using happy, focus-groups words -- is delusional. Does Boehner seriously believe that people would like the war if Republicans just talked about it differently? That a verbal repositioning will make people vote for four more years of falling home values and rising gas prices, huge deficits and an acrimoniously counterproductive political culture? Do they really think that we're going to be distracted by talk of gay marriage and flag lapel pins? Seriously?
Boehner's contention that the Republican Party doesn't need to change is maybe the most ridiculous political statement in this already silly political season. It's sillier than John McCain's claim that he's never done a favor for a lobbyist or Hillary Clinton's vow to make the oil companies pay the gas tax.
The Republican Party doesn't just need to change; it needs an exorcism. It needs to burn itself to the ground and start over. The coalition that built the modern Republican Party -- libertarians, the religious right and working class whites -- is going through a nasty, nasty divorce. They can't stand to be in the same room together, even if the lawyers do all the talking.
I've been saying for a long time that Democrats need to start over, and with Barack Obama they are. The old guard, in the form of the Clintons, is being driven from the castle by a new coalition whose central organizing principle is, right now, disgust with the status quo. Whether that coalition can be solidified is an open question, but for now it's got the establishment firmly by the scruff of the neck and is tossing it over the wall into the fetid moat.
And here comes Boehner -- not Boner, remember -- saying the Republican Party doesn't need to change. They've got a maverick candidate, according to Boehner, and with a tweak or two in rhetoric that maverick -- who disagreed with the wildly unpopular President Bush on exactly nothing of consequence -- will be just the manifestation of change the public is itching for.
Yeah, well: On the same day Boehner said the Republican Party doesn't need to change, the Republicans lost a special election in Mississippi. The election took place in a Congressional District President Bush carried 62-37. The Republican lost, this time around, by 8 points. That's a swing, for those of you keeping score at home, of 33 points.
Nope, no reason to change at all.
